


A hand upon my forehead

by xxx_cat_xxx



Series: Sick Peter Parker [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Fever, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Irondad, Post-Mission, Sick Peter, Sick Peter Parker, Sickfic, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Vomiting, Worried Tony Stark, spiderson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-18 10:11:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15483453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxx_cat_xxx/pseuds/xxx_cat_xxx
Summary: “Actually…” Peter looks a little embarrassed. “Do you have some Advil down here? Think I´m running a fever.”Tony swivels his chair around.“Don´t worry, it´s not bad”, Peter hurries to add when he catches Tony´s alarmed gaze.---A short ´n sweet little Peter - Irondad sickfic cause you all deserve it.





	A hand upon my forehead

**Author's Note:**

> Enjoy and if you like it, follow me on tumblr at [xxx-cat-xxx.tumblr.com](https://xxx-cat-xxx.tumblr.com/). I always love to receive comments.

“Mr. Stark, why aren´t you in bed?”

Tony startles when Peter´s voice interrupts him in the middle of solving a rather tricky equation. He glances up from the screen he has been bent over for the past hours.

The kid is leaning against the workshop´s doorway, eyes barely open, light brown curls sticking out in all directions. He has clearly just woken up. There´s a nasty bruise over his cheekbone that´s slowly turning purple and adds to the boys´s overall dishevelled appearance, but Tony doubts that he himself is looking any better.

“Not a night for sleeping, Pete,” he replies matter-of-factly.

Tony is always edgy after missions, and forcing himself to rest usually ends in the sort of unpleasant dreams he rather seeks to avoid. Coffee and tinkering had seemed like a more preferable choice when they had gotten back to the tower a few hours ago. However, the headache throbbing behind his eyes tells him that maybe, maybe the kid has a point.

“You…you must be tired.” Peter states, sounding a little off.

“Pfffh, a short rendez-vous with New York´s most pitiful criminals doesn´t wear Iron Man out”, he brags. “Gone without sleep for much longer in more adverse situations. My record must be somewhere at… Friday?”

“86 hours, boss. And the fact that you appear to be proud of sleep-deprivation shows that you have a serious issue with-”

“Ya ya, Mummy,” he cuts her off, facing Peter again. “Anyways, what brings you here at this ungodly hour?”

“Actually…” His protégé looks a little embarrassed. “Do you have some Advil down here? Think I´m running a fever.”

Tony swivels his chair around.

“Don´t worry, it´s not bad”, Peter hurries to add when he catches Tony´s alarmed gaze.

The older man takes a closer look at Peter. What he mistook as a casual stance in the doorway is actually an attempt of inconspicuously supporting his weight against the metal frame. The kid´s whole posture radiates tiredness, and he is a few shades paler than usual, bright red spots highlighting his cheeks.

“Friday, diagnosis?” Tony prompts, already getting up to grab the medicine. He groans when every single muscle of his body protests the sudden shift of position. God, getting old is no fun at all. He silently adds _find a remedy against ageing_ to his mental to-do list.

“Mr. Parker´s temperature is currently at 100.6 degrees and hasn´t risen significantly during the past three hours. He is not exhibiting any symptoms of respiratory infection, so I suspect a mild virus or post-battle exhaustion as the most probable cause.”

Okay, Tony can work with that. He just needs to feed the kid some medicine and then tug him into bed. “Alarm me if the fever rises, Friday.”

“I´m okay, Mr. Stark, seriously.” Peter interferes.

“Yeah, a certain spider-lady told me the same thing a few hours ago just before passing out quite spectacularly in the middle of debrief, because she didn´t think it necessary to inform anyone about a foot-long slash wound in her abdomen. So I think it´s justified if I´m a little apprehensive right now.”

“Hey, I just came here to tell you something´s wrong, didn´t I?” Peter protests. “And how is Agent Romanov?”

“Still laid up in medical. Came to a few hours ago, Barton had to threaten her with tranquilizers to make her stay overnight. And they say _I_ am stubborn.”

He observes suspiciously when Peter moves towards a chair and all but falls into it, gratefully accepting the glass of water Tony hands him.

“Only one, Mr. Stark?” he frowns when Tony offers him a fever-reducer.

“You´re a lightweight, be happy I´m letting you have any at all.” Tony rebuts.

“My body burns this stuff way faster than normal people´s!” he protests. “One will hardly do anything for me.”

“Okay, okay.” Tony hands out another tablet. “But that´s all you´re gonna get for the next few hours.” It´s enough if there´s one person in the room with an unhealthy relationship to all kinds of pain-numbing substances, he adds mentally, dry-swallowing two pills himself. It doesn´t escape Peter´s notice.

“Are you okay, Mr. Stark?”

“Yep,” he replies, popping the p. “Great power comes with great punch-attraction, or something like that. We fought and won a battle today, you forgot? And despite lots of rumours on the contrary, I´m still somewhat human and damageable.”

“Hmm.” Peter replies, clearly not following his mentor´s monologue. His eyes have drifted close, exhaustion taking over. Tony wonders whether he has ever been as young as the kid is looking right now.

“Hey, Pete.” He softly shakes him at the shoulder. “Nighty time, come on, let´s get you to bed.”

“Hmm.” It´s a sound of low-key disagreement this time, and Tony glimpses a spark of unease in Peter´s eyes when the boy groggily gets to his feet.

“Spit it out, kiddo,” he probes while following him through the door, trying his best not to limp. “What´s going on?”

“It´s nothing, Mr. Stark. I´m sorry.” Peter rubs his eyes while they wait for the elevator doors to open.

“Gosh, what´s that thing with teenagers and acting all mysterious?” Tony rolls his eyes. “You don´t wanna sleep, you don´t have to. Free country, free choice, all that.”

Peter looks up at him, blushing a little, but visibly relieved. Tony pretty much knows what´s going on, being intimately familiar with the motions that mind and body go through after days like these, including the desire to not being alone in an empty bed. He himself doesn´t really have a choice these days, with Pepper back in her old apartment, but he´s certainly not going to force the kid to be on his own when he doesn´t want to be.

“Movie night it is, then.” he smirks. “But I am getting the couch. Tell me, what was this Star Trek film again, the one in which they travel back into the eighties and Spock strolls around in this hilarious beach robe…?”

They both end up on the couch, because it is by far the most comfortable piece of furniture in the living room, and despite contrary assertions, it´s clear Tony won´t let a sick kid lie down anywhere else.

The spaceship crew hasn´t even landed on earth yet when Peter is fast asleep, wrapped up tightly into a blanket, only his messy curls sticking out. Tony shoves a pillow under his head after checking his temperature and then falls back into the cushions, too exhausted to even think about getting back to the workshop.

He dozes on and off while the movie plays in the background, still too pumped to actually sleep, but oddly comfortable. He´d insist to anyone asking that his robots are all the company he needs in his life right now, _thank you very much and mind your own business_. But he has to admit reluctantly that it´s a nice change to have an actual human being around, even if it´s a feverish 15-year old drooling into the cushions.

The situation is faintly familiar. A few winters back he was the one laid up with a bad case of flu on this very same couch, lights dimmed, TV on, his aching head resting on Pepper´s lap - well, better not think about this now.

Peter´s fever slowly drops to around 100, but he wakes up disoriented and nauseous a few hours later, and despite the boy´s protests, Tony sits with him on the bathroom floor, awkwardly hovering behind his back when he throws up into the toilet bowl, absent-mindedly wondering when exactly he became comfortable with someone else vomiting in his immediate vicinity.

When the kid is reduced to hiccupping and spitting bile into the toilet, Tony fills a glass of water and hands it to him together with a moist washcloth to wipe down his sweaty face.

“Thank you, Mr. Stark”, Peter says hoarsely once he has caught his breath. “I´m sorry for this…” he trails off, cheeks coloured red from strain and embarrassment.

“No worries, kiddo.” he winks at him. “Trust me, it´s not a true battle without someone tossing cookies afterwards.”

He helps Peter to his feet, a warm feeling spreading in his chest when the boy doesn´t resist Tony´s supporting arm around his waist.

“Okay, enough adventures for today. Off to bed now, Spiderling.”


End file.
